Industry News

The Centre for Phenogenomics completed its $50-million facility in the Lebovic Research Centre in Toronto in mid-2007. The 120,000-sf, 180,000-mouse facility houses research laboratories for the study of physiological phenotyping, generation of mutant mice, behavioral analysis, imaging, pathology, and cryopreservation. The project team included engineering firms LKM and SNC-Lavalin Engineering & Technology.

Cornell University celebrated the opening of the 79,000-square-foot East Campus Research Facility (ECRF) on June 26, 2007. Housing approximately 45,000 mice, including transgenic strains, the $55-million building will also accommodate rats, woodchucks, guinea pigs, hamsters, and chickens. Part of Cornell's $600-million New Life Sciences Initiative, the consolidated animal research facility was five years in the making and is expected to be fully operational in fall of 2007. The project was designed by Philadelphia-based Ballinger.

Covance is constructing a 300,000-sf animal testing laboratory in Chandler, Arizona. The facility broke ground in June of 2007 and is slated to begin operations in early 2009. Construction was temporarily halted by a lawsuit which called into question the building permit and zoning for the facility due to alleged non-public meetings between the City of Chandler and Covance. The case was dismissed in February of 2008, allowing construction to resume.

The long-awatited 5th edition of the Biosafety in Microbiological and Biomedical Laboratories (BMBL) guide is now online on the website of the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention at www.cdc.gov/od/ohs/biosfty/bmbl5/bmbl5toc.htm .

UC Davis is proposing to construct five new buildings at the California National Primate Research Center in Davis, Calif. A $5.3-million, 10,000-sf building would accommodate virology and immunology research and would include a 1,100-sf BSL-3 laboratory. Four additional modular buildings would have a footprint of approximately 1,500 sf each, two comprised of laboratory space and two housing office space. Each of the modular buildings would cost approximately $800,000.